DEMOCRACY AID:

Rwanda's civil society on a roll as Sweden gives $ 8.5 billion to monitoring body

subscriber | 11 May, 2010

The Swedish Government development agency Sida hopes to boost Rwanda's civil society through a $  8.5 million injection into a civil society project aimed at "monitoring and providing feed back to the government on how its policies
can be more effective", according to Patrick Osodo, programme manager for Public Policy Information, Monitoring and Advocacy (PPIMA), the reciepient organisation.

Sweden's focus in Africa has shifted and Rwanda is one of the new favourites among Government politicians, with a centre-right leaning, who are more interested in geo-politics than keeping up old relations with former liberation struggle countries who are not their old buddies. Aid bureaucrats are flexible on the subject, also tired of being treated badly by leaders with autocratic tendencies and therefore happy to go to new places.

Sweden has closed embassies in Cote d'Ivore, Namibia and Botswana over the past 3 years and instead opened up in Sudan and Kigali.